Should Smallville's Seventh Season be Serialized?

[triplet]

Also, I believe at least one script per season has to be written by a n00b, per the WGA. Triplet has the skinny on that odd stipulation, so I'll let her explain it.

It's required by the WGA (Writer's Guild of America, the union that represents writers in TV and film) that all scripted TV shows on the major nets (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and now The CW) have 10% of their episodes be written by freelancers, or writers not technically on staff.

For a 22 ep season, that is two episodes.

Sometimes Smallville does sneaky things like hiring script editors (Holly Harold) and Writing Assistants (the guys who wrote Lucy and later the more successful Oracle (story anyway), Neil Sadhu & Daniel Sulzberg, are also listed as writing assistants on IMDB) instead of letting complete outsiders come in and pitch story ideas, which was the point of the rule I believe.

TV is extremely difficult to break into and them giving all their open writing slots to insiders that happen to *not* be on staff isn't playing fair, in my mind.

However, Caroline Dries came over from writing for the Smallville web pages (her name is on some of the articles over there, if you look) so that sometimes turns out okay. She wrote Cyborg, the script for Sadhu's and Sulzberg's Oracle, and wrote Subterranean.

 

[AgentPat]

^ LOL! See? Toldja she had the skinny. Damn, nice summation.

Thanx Trip!!!

 

[Lt. Figgnuts]

See, I understand Gough & Millar's reasoning in the beginning. With a new show trying to establish itself, you want to build the biggest audience possible, and sometimes that means pandering to the "casual viewer." This is why Lost and 24 were such huge gambles in the beginning. For every successful serialized show (Lost, Heroes, 24) there are even more unsuccessful ones (Smith, The Nine, Vanished, Kidnapped, etc.)

No, I agree with you completely. I understand why a show needs to do that. I don't LIKE it, but I do understand why a show would need to do that at the start of the run.

I'm hoping, though, that now that we (as you said) are entering the age of DVR and such, that we'll start to see more of a lean towards serialized storytelling in general.

 

[RakuMon]

Interesting article in USA Today about the new trend of airing "Fall Finales" as opposed to alternating b/w new and old episodes all season long. This is another thing I wish Smallville would do, and another reason why I'd like them to go the serialized route. The bit about Veronica Mars is interesting. That show is split into three seperate story arcs. Heroes too. Tonight is the finale of the "Save the Cheerleader" story line. When the show returns in January, it'll start another storyline and then air a third from April to May.

Imagine if Smallville did this. We could have one self contained storyline from October to December. Then a second in January to March. And the Finale push from April to May. With breaks in between.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-12-03-fall-finales_x.htm

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

Interesting article in USA Today about the new trend of airing "Fall Finales" as opposed to alternating b/w new and old episodes all season long. This is another thing I wish Smallville would do, and another reason why I'd like them to go the serialized route. The bit about Veronica Mars is interesting. That show is split into three seperate story arcs. Heroes too. Tonight is the finale of the "Save the Cheerleader" story line. When the show returns in January, it'll start another storyline and then air a third from April to May.

Imagine if Smallville did this. We could have one self contained storyline from October to December. Then a second in January to March. And the Finale push from April to May. With breaks in between.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-12-03-fall-finales_x.htm

That is what SV should have done like Heroes go in chapters and do the show that way. I mean even Heroes filler shows tie into the main arc in some way. As I said before SV has so much it could do but under preforms a lot of times. IMO the problem why they let me down so much is story telling. Out of 22 shows only about 5 of them really have a good story. Thats why I am shocked about season 6 because this season has been really good.

 

[Batman the 6th]

I think there should only be 7 seasons, otherwise season 8 maybe too much.